ow not om

Oh man, I should have stayed home last night instead of going on a midnight mission to bake delicious homestyle banana bread with my pal, Chelsea. Oh, how it rocked my world. I forgot how full I was from my 1st dinner last night. I've just been craving heavy food at night and last night I dived in head first. MMM started out with a grilled cheese (finally fulfilled that dream) then had a generous portion of Chelsea and my Macacoconana nut bread. Macadamia nuts, bananas, with some coconut milk for fun. OMG I didn't think I could make it so good. It was a recipe transmitted from god through us last night. But like I said, it rocked my world from the stomach outward. I realized how my week of making the "healthy choice" decreased my tolerance for tipping the scale. Oh! and I knew it was going to hurt, but god put butter and fresh handmade banana (macacoconana nut) bread on this earth for us to enjoy it, anytime of day or night. Right? ... right? Anywhoo. Needless to say the 1a.m. sugar rush left us indeed satisfied and then some. We both looked at eachother with slight regret in our eyes as our stomach rushed trying to make room for the new arrival. We definitely found god through that bread last night. As we laid on the floor praying it would digest I just had to trust that the decadent, but not lethal bread, was an appropriate step in understanding the healing process. Let me be the poster child, I can handle the heat. As this was not the "healthiest" choice a yogi in training could be making, I felt so much gratitude for being able to bake with my friend Chelsea and kick it with no barbed wire fences. Although I am developing a spiritual practice, I do not want it to mean that I have this invisible cage keeping me from having my idea of fun. Since I try my hardest to have fun, I've come to know that fun, at any level of intensity, requires something painful. In my case, usually the pain and pleasure are experienced simultaneously or in close quarters, which I like to think of as instant karma. Like I recently learned from a new friend, "if you're going to suffer, at least enjoy it" I knew I'd suffer, but I allowed myself to be filled to the brim with joy in the form of our signature bread. The pain of regretting, and self-punishment for fucking up is much worse than just experiencing the anatomy-shifting-fullness that left me sprawled out on the floor, smiling with bread crumbs on the sides of my lips. :) My heart was full. I've had some practice (as I mentioned I like good fun) shifting my thought patterns away from the downward spiral of "stupid Megan you should know you can't eat this you shouldn't have done this you are so bad no more sugar for you good job you fucked up again." Well guess what. I'm a fuck up sometimes! I fell on my face on the path of goodness and light. I'm still here, though. Still Megan, still interested in yoga, compassion, and fruit and vegetables. My goal I suppose is to not tip the scale so far to one side. Eat when I want to eat, not eat when I don't want to eat. By doing yoga I feel I've created all this space in my belly and my tissues, I have space to do whatever I want... But it's a new effort to not need to over-fill that space. Over compensation. For what? Perhaps a fear of famine??...no... maybe I just really really learned as a young child to clean my whole plate, and finish my glass of milk. Perhaps because there have been times in my life when I had been caged with self-control and didn't allow myself to have any fun and I'm making up for lost time. When tipping the scale, know that balance will happen whether you put an effort toward it or not. When you become more enlightened, someone gets dumber. When you fuck up, someone else has an equal opportunity to help someone off their feet. It's not important to be perfect. It's important to expect balance to happen, and it's important to expect a side of suffering with your order of joix.

you can fix you

All this rearrangement of my body parts from yoga is starting to reveal compensation patterns of injuries experienced over a decade ago.  I find it most when I'm riding my bike.  It's the gracillus muscle on my right leg, deep in the hip joint.  I had this crazy vision last night of how exactly the pain has affected my whole body over time..  When I was in 3rd grade I was being chased around by my little buddy Max and I slipped on the carpet, and my right leg shot out to the side and I'm pretty sure it strained or sprained my knee.  I was in pain for a good year, but because my mom thought I was so tough she never took me to the doctor.  Not that I'm bitter...  So the injury is in the medial side of the right knee in the tissue.  Because my bent leg went out to the side rotated internally, there is now resistance to internal rotation in the hip joint.  Hence I feel much tightness in my gluteals, and the tri-force of the gracillus, piriformis, and psoas.  So, since the injury happened on the right side, my left leg took over some of the load.  To try and put as little pressure on my right knee, I stood more on my left leg.  Now I see that my left hip is bound at the ilio-sacral joint, and of course my tight butt (gluteals, psoas, piriformis, etc...) lift my left hip just slightly.  I can notice this when I am laying on my back, right leg straight, both shoulders on the ground, with left knee bent and falling to the right side.  The range of motion only allows me to rotate to the point where my knee is still about 6 inches from the ground.  I find myself short of breath if I don't move into this pose very slowly.  I have given up trying to self-adjust (crack) my lower spine because that has proven to be practically impossible as well as painful.  What HAS helped that tricky slightly rotated left hip are lunges ( to stretch the left psoas) or pigeon with left leg extended (of course counter poses are equally as important).  I think because my rear end is so tight it scrunches up my hip, so that deeep psoas stretch provides a lot of relief.  It seems sometimes that when you have a muscle that bothers you on one side, or the back of your body, it's a sign that you would benefit from opening the muscles on the front or opposite side.  (i.e. upper back pain?  open chest in the pectoralis on the anterior side to give that shoulder more room to breath)   That, I'll be clear, is something I've noticed on my own body, with the help of some well versed massage therapists.  It's helpful to get a second, third, fourth opinion and explore your different muscle groups slowly and thoughtfully.  Yoga can be a big help when you allow your breath to take you to the root of the sensation.  Yoga allows you to interpret the sensation as you know best, since you are the only one who really knows how, what, why an injury or trauma happened.  Come to a yoga class ready to explore your own body, at your own pace.   Things will unfold as they are supposed to, sometimes revealing the answers in a seemingly insignificant moment.  

Like a Libra

The feeling that I get when I think about this training now, compared to maybe a month ago, has completely turned 180 degrees.  I was so nervous and resistant, I thought sometimes I'd rather just go back to Minnesota and hide out in my mommy's house and stay comfortable for the rest of my days.  I had the mindset that I would have to turn myself into this mystical, blindly trusting, raw food eating holy woman to really be someone people would want to take a class from.  It's amazing what our minds come up with to turn us away from our true heart's desire.  Yoga, fortunately, is such that our minds and hearts can integrate to form a clearer, less scary picture of all that we work towards.  In the two days we have convened, it has been recommended to just start out slowly, paying close attention to the point at which your physical edge meets your depth of breath.  This is how we integrate.  The inhale lets us take in the scenery, as the exhale allows that information to be just what it is.  The inhale fills us with new life, and the exhale recycles what is no longer useful.  Yin & Yang.  Hot & Cold.  Awake & Asleep.  Light & Heavy.  If we allow the breath to move us from one to the other, the tipping of the scale will become less drastic, with less reason to hold on for dear life so we don't fall off.  With our feet rooted firmly on our own individual path we will be able to sway with the wind, be as bold as thunder, and shake hands with those we come across with comfort in our belly, and love in our hearts.  As we begin to focus on our task, and not the outcome, hard work becomes less heavy, and even more exciting because we are making progress in our commitment to living a long full life.   Whatever the outcome, love the process. 

Gooo vinda!

Take a deep breath and... ahhh...

Today I'll be starting my very first training to be an instructor of yoga.  This, I must say, is the beginning of a long life of exploration inward to better share compassion and integration.  At this point I have cleared my head of self-expectation (as much as I understand it), and I'm looking forward to building on a clean slate.  It helps to have a good 10 day chunk of time-off from work to really dive deep into something that I/is love.  Hanumanasana - Here I come!